


"Real Trauma"

by Percy Jackson (MCU_is_awesome)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Annabeth Chase has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mentioned Annabeth Chase, No Plot/Plotless, Percy Jackson has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Male Character, Trans Male Percy Jackson, Trans Percy Jackson, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23082097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MCU_is_awesome/pseuds/Percy%20Jackson
Summary: Some days are hard when you've got PTSD. Unfortunately, it's a lot messier and more complicated than the movies would have you believe.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 123





	"Real Trauma"

**Author's Note:**

> Overly self-indulgent vent fic based on my own experiences. I'd like to disclaim that this fic deals with PTSD, so please be safe, and also that I have both PTSD and C-PTSD from separate things, so I do know how it is.
> 
> Also please note that this is a slight AU wherein both Gabe and Annabeth's dad and step-mother were more abusive, and they were with them longer than in canon.
> 
> Finally, in this AU, Percy transitioned at like, idk. 14 or 16 or something. So he's still getting used to Male Gender NormsTM and might be a bit OOC in that area. Honestly, I feel like he's probably OOC in general because this is supposed to be the more grown up version of him vs the teenager from the books, but that's probably just a poor excuse for my complete lack of characterization abilities.
> 
> This story is kind of all over the place, because I didn't really have a set idea in mind, I just wanted to vent.
> 
> This isn't specifically gifted to anyone, but it's dedicated to my lovely girlfriend, who Gets It. I love you.

Real trauma is messy.

It doesn’t fit the picture-perfect media portrayal that everyone sees. It’s not just sadness and crying and panic attacks, quickly followed and ended by a Heroic Love Interest that comes to wipe away the tears. It’s a series of little things, Percy has come to realize. These little things compound.

Sure, it’s also the stereotypical things. Sometimes it _is_ waking up in the early hours of the morning, shaking and crying, “How could he do that? How could he… how? Why? He was our _friend_ , Annabeth, how could he do that to me, to all of us, I don’t get it…”

But it’s not just that. It’s so much more than that. It’s also this feeling of guilt that eats at you over time, I should have noticed, why didn’t I notice. I could have helped. I _should_ have helped. I should have been there for him. I could have fixed…

It’s jumping, flinching, just a little bit. No one notices, but you notice. It ruins your day every time you hear a door slam, but the actual clash of sword on sword doesn’t bother you at all. You must be really messed up.

It’s being too affected for some people, but not affected enough for others. How can you have PTSD about _this_ , but not _that_? _That_ was nothing compared to _other things_ you experienced. Are you sure you’re not faking it? Are you sure it’s really that bad? Are you sure you’re not just making excuses? Are you sure, are you sure, are you sure…? Now you just don’t tell anyone new.

It’s the fact that you were just a kid, and who could treat a kid like that? Why you, what did you do to deserve this?

It’s the ugly clash of multiple mental illnesses, this gross compound of anxiety and depression and ADHD and dyslexia and PTSD and C-PTSD just exploding before you in this weird mix of reactions. Sometimes you’re fine. Usually you’re not. You should be able to handle this by now. Why can’t you handle this?

It’s mixed feelings. I deserved better. I deserved worse. I deserved better. I guess I just got what I deserved, didn’t I?

It’s not being able to get anything done. Staring at a computer screen for hours, the computer screen you were already anxious about using in terms of being tracked, desperately trying to get _anything_ done, wondering how much is ADHD and how much isn’t.

It’s not being able to get therapy, because who would believe you? So it just gets worse, and worse, and worse, and worse. No one ever notices, no one ever cares, no one ever helps. (Well, except Annabeth. But she’s perfect and special and different and he’s so, so tired of bringing her down with him, even as much as she assures him again and again he’s not.)

And worst, it’s this mutual triggering. When Percy gets set off by something and accidentally manages to trigger Annabeth in the process. Then it’s hours of quiet and crying and sorries and desperate reassurances. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me. ~~Please don’t break up with me.~~ I love you. It doesn’t matter. It’s my fault. I love you. Please. Please. Please. Please. I love you.

* * *

He gets home and shoves off his binder and lays down in bed, shirtless, trying to breathe. It seems like he’s been doing less and less of that recently.

He’s tired of the comments and the whispers and the hate in this program, something he thought he could be good at. Something he thought he would find fun, just wanting to pretend to be normal for a few years. Just a few years.

They snicker at him and at everyone as they walk. Ugly comments about women and gay people and religious minorities fill the classrooms before classes begin as though they’re not in college, anymore, but middle school. The boys are loud and obnoxious and the girls, well. It’s hardly appropriate for him to talk to them without it being sexual harassment, apparently. He’s not used to this. Maybe he should have picked something else. Psychology, maybe. He thinks he would have liked that, helping people, but maybe that was the problem. As Annabeth had put it, he was doing too much “helping other people” and not enough “helping himself.”

So he had picked engineering, because well, why not? He wanted something completely new, something he’d never even considered before, tired of following the same predictable patterns as before. Making new things sounded interesting enough. Annabeth had predictably picked architecture, and it was fine because they lived together, so they still saw each other every day. It was fine, really.

Just sometimes, he couldn’t go to class, and then she’d get home and he couldn’t lie and he’d spend hours crying about it, and then the school would send him yet another email urging him to attend lest he be put on academic probation. PTSD only goes so far to excuse absence when you’ve missed 70% of the semester.

He had thought he was ready, he _wanted_ to be ready, and Annabeth was ready, so why wasn’t he? He loved her so much, it was impossible to explain. His whole body _ached_ with love whenever he thought of her. He hadn’t realized it was possible to love another person this much. He was grateful for her every single day.

But she just… it all seemed so effortless for her. She didn’t really… well. She didn’t have PTSD from… recent stuff. In his worst moments, Percy has to wonder why only he got stuck with it all. They’d both had to go through the wars. Both were betrayed by Luke and tossed into Tartarus and spit on by every deity and random monster they came across as though they were nothing. Both had been forced to go through and experience things no children should ever have had to. Honestly, no adults should have either. And yet, only he gained that trauma.

It’s not that she completely didn’t understand, either. Being demigods, they were both cursed with ADHD and dyslexia. And she got… She had the same C-PTSD as him, from childhood bullshit that made his blood boil. They experienced so many of the same things growing up it was almost uncanny. But the kind of trauma that had him waking up at night crying, that was less relatable to her.

He turns on some dramatic music and sighs. Annabeth was visiting her half-brothers on her dad’s side. He tried to talk her out of it, her stepmother always treated her like garbage, but to no avail. She was determined to have a relationship with them, couldn’t bear to leave them alone with only the woman who abused her and the man who let it happen.

She really was too good for him.

Last night they had video chatted, the week apart too much. It had ended in tears and reassurances and it was fine, it was. Percy was just mad that he always messed it up. Nothing had even gone wrong, she just raised her voice, just a little bit, and that was it. Hours ruined by his stupidity. Because of course it was.

He knew that only he saw it that way. Annabeth lovingly dubbed it “double-duty.” Double-duty––when both of their traumas managed to set each other off. She’d been doing countless hours of research on the kind of stuff that psychologists get paid to do, and what had he contributed? His quips?

Annabeth was the best person he knew. He was learning so much about himself, and he was getting better. It was just slow. He wanted to be done with it already.

But real trauma, not the movie version, is messy. It’s messy and it’s hard and it gets better but before it does, it hurts, and it’s so agonizingly slow that some days it feels like he’s going backward instead of forward. Some days he can’t bring himself to do anything but sit in his bed and play games as he slowly panics about everything he should be doing but can’t. Two years ago he was saving the world, and now he can’t even get out of bed. Go figure.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope this wasn't the worst! Would prefer relatively little concrit, please, though if you wanna point out a grammar issue that's fine, but feel free to ask questions if you have any and I will do my best to answer!
> 
> Maybe one day I'll write a sequel.


End file.
